The 2016 Best Workplaces in Retail

Great Place to Work

01 November 2016

These standout companies reward challenging jobs with a commitment to employee well-being.

November 1, 2016 (San Francisco, Calif.) – Whether they're advising customers, keeping the shelves full or writing the code that enables shopping online, people who work for retailers keep us stocked in the goods essential to everyday life. This sector employs nearly 16 million Americans who will soon work even harder to ensure the wheels of commerce spin freely during the busy holiday season. So research and consulting firm Great Place to Work® and Fortune are proud to announce this year's annual ranking of the country's Best Workplaces in Retail.

To determine the winners, Great Place to Work® studied 23,000 employee surveys from retailers that together employ more than 600,000 people. According to their team members, the best companies stood apart for their benefits and work-life balance, as well as organizational cultures that consistently support employees.

"The people who work in retail aren't just minding the store: They're the face of their companies,” said Kim Peters, executive vice president of Great Place to Work®. “Colleagues in this industry represent their employers in challenging, personal ways that no amount of marketing or business planning can replace. The Best Workplaces in Retail recognize this value and support their people with thorough career development and even-handed leadership."

Family Friendly Benefits: At Room & Board, anyone who works at least 20 hours per week is eligible for full benefits, which encompass health coverage for employees and their families, paid vacation time and matched retirement contributions that include an extra bonus when the company meets its financial goals. In addition to parental leave, caregivers receive $500 to help welcome a baby into their families.

Flexible Work: Nugget Market also offers full-time benefits to part-time employees. And staffers needn't worry about losing them when returning to school or tending to obligations at home, thanks to policies that encourage flexible scheduling and earned PTO.

Playful Perks: If the Internet has revamped the nature of shopping, then companies like Jane.com have overhauled what it means to work for a retailer. This Utah-based company boasts Silicon Valley-style perks that include an in-house barber shop, twice-weekly catered lunches, a fitness facility and a gaming room complete with an Xbox and foosball table.

The Best Workplaces in Retail include five small and mid-sized businesses with 10 to 999 team members, along with 10 large companies with more than 1,000 people on the payroll. These organizations represent the retailers with the best overall employee survey results among all Great Place to Work®-CertifiedTM businesses in the industry. Creating the ranking also revealed some telling relationships between employer traits and the experience of part-time team members, who represent an outsized share of the workforce in this sector. Part-time employees at surveyed retailers who said they receive sufficient training and professional development were twice as likely to say their teams were willing to give extra to get the job done. Likewise, part-time retail colleagues who said their work offers special meaning were five times more likely to say they plan to stay with their companies for a long time.

At the Best Workplaces in Retail, employees gave their companies high marks for their benefits, work atmosphere and work-life balance. Among those surveyed at organizations on the list:

90 percent said they have special or unique benefits

85 percent said their colleagues look forward to coming to work, and

86 percent said they're encouraged to balance work and personal life.

The Best Workplaces in Retail is one of a series of rankings by Great Place to Work and Fortune based on employee survey feedback from Great Place to Work-Certified organizations.

About Great Place to WorkGreat Place to Work® is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, including Best Workplaces lists and workplace reviews, Great Place to Work® provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures. In the United States, Great Place to Work® produces the annual Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list and a series of Great Place to Work® Best Workplaces lists, including lists for Millennials, women and diversity, as well as lists representing many different industries.

Great Place to Work® is a global people analytics and consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes produce better business results by focusing on the work experience for every employee—our research shows there’s a clear and direct relationship between employee engagement and financial performance. Over the past 30 years, we have surveyed more than 100 million employees to help organizations around the world identify and build high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Powered by decades of research, Emprising®, our Software-as-a-Service survey and analytics platform, empowers companies with access to the assessments, data, and real-time reporting needed to help them create a meaningful impact on their business, their people, and their culture. Through our certification programs, we recognize outstanding workplaces and produce Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, as well as a variety of other Best Workplace rankings in the United States and in more than 60 other countries. Everything we do is driven by our mission: to build a better world by helping every organization become a Great Place to Work For All by the year 2030.